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The EU or the European Union is the reason why the next generation AMG tuned Mercedes’ will not have a naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 engine, the reason why the new BMW M5 had to ditch a naturally aspirated V10 for a twin-turbo V8. Basically, why every performance oriented car is inching towards turbo/super charging or a KERS like electric assist system.

The amount of carbon dioxide your car produces is also governed by them. As a result, every once in a while, the EU likes to improve their expectations and set the maximum limit for emissions and they also like to set what sort of fuel efficiency is expected from a car.

Autocar UK reports that by 2025, the EU expects cars to achieve an average FE (Fuel Efficiency) of 106mpg (37.35km/l). The news doesn’t end there.

When a manufacturer puts a new car on the market, be it in India or abroad, it is run at a near constant speed around a test track and the FE is recorded. In India we call it the ARAI rated FE, the Americans call it the EPA rated FE and so on and so forth. All these tests have one thing in common – they are the ‘ideal’ FE of the car under ‘ideal’ circumstances. As a result, you may never be able to achieve these figures on a daily basis, let alone circumstantial.

As a result, a lot of people have been complaining abroad and hence a new type of FE test is going to be implemented by 2017. It’s called the WLTP test (World Light Duty Test Procedure) and it promises that the car will be tested close to a real-world scenario.

Coming to emissions, the EU would like new cars to emit an average of 95gm of CO2 per km, rather than the current 130gm. Manufacturers making less than 1000 cars/year will be exempted however.